continuum
by nouveaulove
Summary: 'in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred ways; they connect.' / bethyl, a collection of drabbles and one-shots set in both canon and au.
1. cramp

**Muscle Cramp** (set between 'Still' and 'Alone')

* * *

Upon waking, Beth almost cries out as she tries to stretch her leg.

While able to hold back the cry from the sharp pain that courses up her limb, a whimper still manages to make its way out her throat before she can stop it. Beth tries once more to stretch out her leg, slowly this time, but hisses in pain as the muscle on the back of her thigh tightens and spasms at the motion.

She knows the cramp must be from the day before, with hours spent tracking, her muscles tight in an effort to keep silent. When Daryl had offered to start teaching her to track and hunt, Beth had been so overjoyed she'd nearly thrown her arms around him in excitement. While she had made the odd comment or two, she'd never expected him to take them to heart. Yesterday had been the first day of that training and she had desperately wanted to do well.

Beth had always been eager to please, something that Shawn had teased her teased her merciless about, calling her an over achiever with every school project she stayed up late working on. He would have busted a gut laughing at her now if he could've seen her.

She pushes that thought away, knowing how slippery and dangerous memory lane could be.

Beth looks up to find Daryl studying her from across their small campsite, poised in crouching over their shared pack, most likely having paused in the middle of searching for the can of beans they planned on sharing for breakfast.

He raises a brow at her, asking her without words what her deal was.

"Think I got a muscle cramp or somethin'." Beth says, cheeks flushing slightly with embarrassment. She attempts a smile but it comes out askew as she worries the comer of her bottom lip with her teeth. Beth can't help but be nervous at the thought of disappointing him.

Only a few days had passed since they'd burned down the moonshiners' cabin together but Beth could feel the shift between Daryl and her since it. That cabin, burned now to ashes, had brought them close, closer than Beth had felt to anyone in a long time (she keeps having a terrifying thought of _'maybe ever'_ that she tries to push away).

But the new balance still feels delicate, fragile as butterfly wings, and she's scared she may do something to ruin it. She can't go back to him shutting down and not speaking to her. Not now, when she feels the least alone she has felt since the world itself fell apart.

She finally has him, as a partner and, perhaps, friend and she can't bare thought of losing him now.

Daryl looks at her a few moments longer before dropping his gaze back down to the backpack at his feet. He chews at his bottom lip, rustling with the bag before he standing abruptly, seeming to come to a sudden decision, rubbing his hands on the front of his pants. She watches him, confused and curious, as he strides across camp, coming to kneel before her.

"Where ya hurtin'?" Daryl asks, his tone forceful but not hard, the one she has noticed he uses when he has a task and his focus is only on it.

"Um, back of my thigh." Beth replies, rubbing at her right leg.

"Gonna work it out a little, 'kay?"

Daryl meets her gaze then; his blue eyes steady on her in a way that makes gooseflesh rise on the uncovered skin of her arms. He was asking her permission she realizes slowly, feeling somehow dazed, so she nods, not quite trusting her voice.

He sets his hands on her then, moving her right leg so that it's hooked over his left shoulder and she's leaning back slightly on her hands, palms in the dirt. His touch is perfunctory and professional and Beth feels silly for the slight fluttering in her stomach she feels at the warmth of his hands.

His hands are large and strong as he grips her jean-clad thigh and when his fingers dig into the tight muscles there's a relief that is as painful as it is sweet. He works with a sureness that makes her think this isn't his first time with sore muscles. When he hits a particularly tense spot she can't help but gasp at the sensation, her fingers digging into the dirt at her sides.

His voice seems rougher than normal as he breaks the silence. "What the hell got you so tight girl?"

"Tracking, I suppose. I was wound up and trying so hard to be quiet I didn't notice I'd locked up my muscles."

"Why?"

She shrugs. "Just nervous, I guess. Didn't wanna disappoint you."

Beth can see from the way his jaw tightens and his hands falter for a moment that Daryl isn't sure what to do with her statement. She continues on. "Didn't want you to stop teaching me."

It's a long moment before he responds, grumbling and not meeting her eyes. "Wouldn't have started if I planned to stop."

"Yeah?"

He looks at her then, face lit by the early morning light, gaze serious and intense and focused solely on her and although he hasn't touched any sore muscles, Beth feels all her breath leave her in a sharp sigh.

He drops his head back down, and mumbles out a quiet, "Anyways, ya got good instincts."

Beth can't help but grin, warmth blooming in her chest at the words. That was Daryl Dixon praise, which was worth more than gold in her book.

* * *

A/N: I'm decided to put all of my drabbles/tumblr prompts together in one place since I get so many little ideas for these two that don't fit into any larger stories. Ratings and genres will vary. If you have anything you'd like to see, either let me on here or my tumblr, .com. :)


	2. married

**Pretending To Be Married**

* * *

His unlikely traveling companion is up on the small plywood stage; guitar on her lap and colorfully embroidered cowboy boots on her feet as she finishes up some Americana classic.

They'd stumbled across this chance to make a couple bucks earlier on that day, having Beth sing a set in the small bar sitting at the edge of the Texas/Mexico border and with weeks on the road, low funds, and more than a few miles to go, it'd been a necessity much more than a choice. But Beth had seemed pleased enough with the idea, which was the only real reason Daryl was going along with the proposal.

The stage was lit up and as the light catches in the wayward curls around Beth's face it makes her appear even younger and so much softer than the otherwise shabby interior of the bar they were in. She strums the finals cords of the tune and looks out over the small crowd made up mostly of ranch hands.

When she meets Daryl gaze, she gives him a small wave and smile before starting in on the next song, and he can't help but wonder which odd turn he'd taken in his life had managed to land him here, trekking cross-country with this girl.

"She's good." A voice interrupts his thoughts.

Daryl looks over at a stranger sliding onto the barstool next to his. He's young, dark haired and baby-faced; with a belt buckle large enough to remind anyone they were in Texas, as if they were likely to forget. The young man is clearly referring to Beth and Daryl realizes that he must have been staring again, too caught up in her performance to check his intensity. It's happening more and more, and it unnerves him to think that the pull of Beth is becoming too much like gravity that he keeps slipping into.

After nursing a long pull of his beer, Daryl grunts out an affirmative, finally answering the young man's statement. It's a simple fact. She _is_ good. Beth has the type of simple, sweet voice that is made for church picnics and singing babies to sleep and haunting a man when she's gone.

"She, uh, your wife or somethin'?"

Daryl jerks slightly, not sure what has brought on that particularly startling question, looking at the kid then back over to Beth who was strumming away as she sang. He was certain people had seen them sitting together before she had started her set but that was hardly worthy of the jumping to the conclusion of marriage.

Then he notices it, the ring on Beth's left hand, its large fake stone glinting in the stage light. With the distance, the ring almost looks like it could be nice instead of just some cheap prize from the bottom of a _Cracker Jack_ box he had bought in a truck stop.

(_He'd thrown it to her with a quiet 'here' when he'd found it._

_She had grinned as she slipped it on before holding up her hand and waggling her fingers at him._

_'__Look, perfect fit.'_)

He turns back to the stranger, who is looking just as awkward as Daryl feels, his full cheeks flushed red. Daryl is completely ready to tell him to piss off but then the kid glances back up to where Beth is singing with fucking stars in his eyes and something in Daryl's gut twists.

"…Yeah."

The word is out before he can stop it and while it's hardly the first time he has spoken before he has thought, he's still surprised by it. Daryl feels the back of his neck heat up at the lie.

The stranger looks a little like someone just kicked his puppy and Daryl fights to keep his face blank against the raising panic and guilt and the repeated question of _why, why, why_ going through his head.

After the shock seems to fade, the kid mumbles out some mixture of apology and congratulations with a sheepish grin, heading back to his buddies a couple tables away. Daryl is left to his beer and he quickly downs the rest of it before he focuses on picking at the already peeling label as he tries to ignore the way his heart is racing.

Somewhere behind him Beth is singing about the queen of hearts and letting someone love you and—shit, he just knows this is going to come back to bite him.


	3. beautiful

**Beautiful**

* * *

They've barely been able to take their eyes off the child, bundled in a yellow blanket, since her birth hours before.

"She looks like you."

He glances over to Beth at the sound of her voice, still flushed with fizzy curls escaping her ponytail, smiling down at the baby in her arms. Even clearly exhausted with dark circles under her eyes, she's the happiest Daryl has ever seen her.

Beth traces the sleeping baby's features with a quiet reverence, an awe that Daryl understands since every time he looks at their child, his _daughter_, he's filled with the same feeling, until he can barely breathe from it.

He reaches out a hand to rub at the downy hair on the crown of the newborn's head, so soft it tickles the pads of his fingers.

"Poor girl."

"Oh, hush" She lightly smacks his chest at his comment. "She's going to be beautiful. Inside and out."

She's looking at him then, eyes bright blue and clear and filled with so much love it makes his breath catch and steals away any sarcastic comment on the tip of his tongue. "Just like her daddy."

He stares back at her, throat tight, always rocked by her unwavering faith in him.

Closing his eyes and letting out a slow breath, Daryl leans in to press his forehead against against Beth's, his hand still curled gently around their daughter's head.


	4. to infinity and beyond

**Three sentence fic- Scifi-verse**

* * *

Stranded in a cave on a hostile alien planet with an unconscious commanding officer is hardly how cadet Beth Greene imagined her first away mission, having never been one with the most vivid of imaginations.

She takes a slow, deep breath to ease the raising panic in her as she leans over her companion, taking in his pale complexion and the vivid smear of blood across one temple, desperately wishing she had her scanner to check his vitals with but settling for manually finding his pulse (_steady, thank God_) with her fingertips.

"It's going to be okay, Dixon," Beth soothed, brushing back his bangs gently—a liberty she knew the stoic man wouldn't have allowed had he been awake but one that was helping keep her grounded— as her mind raced through every training simulation he had made her and the other students run through countless times, "I'm going to keep us safe, I promise."


End file.
